[142] “One of the most remarkable typographical displays in the great
Exhibition of 1851 was the collection of Chinese types, or at least
types to represent Chinese characters, in the Zollverein department.
They were manufactured by Beyerhaus of Berlin, for the American
Missionary Society. The Chinese vocabulary is made up of a number of
distinct words, which are not built up from component letters, as in
European languages, but have a good deal of the hieroglyphic effect
about them. To imitate these words or characters by moveable types has
always been deemed a difficult matter. M. Beyerhaus has analyzed the
lines and dots of the Chinese language, so as to make 4200 letters
out of them, or elements which will serve the compositor in lieu of
letters. The steel punches of all these 4200 types were shewn; and by
various combinations of them, about 24,000 Chinese words or characters
can be imitated; and it was very interesting to see copies of the
Bible and the New Testament printed in Chinese by the aid of these
types.”--_Curiosities of Industry_--Printing; its Modern Varieties, by
G. DODD, p. 4.
[143] This may sometimes have been owing to a scarcity of capital
letters. An amusing story is told of a jobbing printer, who was seen
printing the label “Lodgings to let,” in gold capital letters on a blue
ground, with the second G left out. Upon the omission being pointed out
to him, he said “Pshaw! I should like to know why a printer should not
spell Lodgings with one G, when he has but that one in his fount!”
[144] Some of these bindings were wonderful specimens of patient
labour. Wooden boards as thick as the panels of a door, studded with
large brass nails with ornamented heads and massive metal corners, for
sides, the backs solid with paste and glue, and the fronts fastened
with heavy clasps, were by no means rare. Sometimes these covers were
so made as to serve as receptacles for relics. Scaliger tells us that
his grandmother had a printed Psalter, the cover of which was two
inches thick, the inside forming a kind of cupboard in which was a
small silver crucifix; and Mr. Hansard relates having seen an ancient
book, in the cover of which was a recess for a relic--a human toe!
APPENDIX.
I.--ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF PRINTING, BY J. F. FAUST OF ASCHAFFENBERG.
Joh. Fried. Faust, ein Sohn des im Jahre 1619 verstorbenen Schöffen
des Reichsgerichtes und Rathes zu Frankfurt, erzhält, aus den
Familienpapieren, welche die Fauste von Aschaffenberg (Abkömmlinge der
Fuste von Mainz) in ihrem Archive aufbewahrten, die Geschichte der
Erfindung in folgender Weise:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account